Baseball: El Toro Beats Tesoro for South Coast Title

If you can't score, you can't win. And against El Toro's pitching staff, Tesoro can't score.

And so, with first place on the line Thursday at Tesoro, the Titans couldn't win.

For the third time this season, an El Toro pitcher—this time junior Chasen Ford—fired a shutout, beating the Titans, 4-0, to put the final touches on a South Coast League title.

The teams came into the week sharing first place, with home and away games against each other. But the Chargers—ranked No. 7 in the Southern Section Division 1 poll—scored a 9-0 victory on Tuesday before following with another shutout on the regular season's final day.

El Toro finishes the regular season 24-6 overall, 9-3 in league; Tesoro is 18-10-1, 7-5.

Mitchell Tolman, whose first homer of the season was a grand slam in Tuesday's victory, had a double and triple, drove in a run and scored twice.

Jonah Arenado had two runs batted in, and Jayson Yano had one.

Ford (10-0) pitched a two-hitter for El Toro; he struck out five and faced only three batters over the minimum. It's the second time this season that Ford has beaten Tesoro by a 4-0 count. As sharp as Ford was, he was even better in the first meeting when he pitched a one-hitter.

Even if El Toro had lost, it would have had one major point going forward in the playoffs: By virtue of winning two of three against the Titans, it would have been the first-place entry to the Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.

The pairings for the playoffs will be released on Monday at the Southern Section office.

Tesoro finished second in league, and Capistrano Valley (18-11-1, 6-6), which lost to San Clemente 2-1, and finished third. The Tritons (15-13, 5-7) finished fourth.